A left-wing philosopher advocates that it is time for humanity to return to nature, but sends his diatribes via e-mail. Acolytes reading his emails in France form a commune and strive to live pure lives. They exclude people who are not sufficiently indoctrinated with the existential crisis that Homo sapiens has brought upon themselves. The superior humanity of Neanderthals (now sadly extinct) fill lengthy electronic missives.
The commune is suspected of sabotaging a big geo-engineering project that will destroy the water table in the Central Massif. It will also ruin the lives of very-pure peasants (who the commune has excused for taking on modern agricultural techniques even though they might be advancing neo-liberalist agendas and the success of Capitalism with a capital C!)
Sadie has been hired by some agency (we aren’t exactly sure which) to infiltrate the commune and entrap them into doing something illegal, thereby proving the commune-ists were responsible for the initial sabotage. Sadie (in a book written by a woman) seems quite preoccupied with the size of her breasts, and has no compunctions about deceiving people into doing illegal acts they might not otherwise have undertaken.
This book made so many critic’s must-read lists. Seriously? Feh. Read it if you want to meet characters with no moral centers and read a lot about a nihilistic crackpot of a cult leader.